A failure or success?

“Tit-for-tat” is the moral principle that tells you to respond to your partner’s action in the same way. It often leads to trust and cooperation between two partners, but there is also a devastating weakness: A conflict is very difficult to abort and the more a part hurts the other, the more it hurts itself. Israel and Gaza suffer from this Tit-for-tat weakness and we feel very sorry for them. Tit-for-tat is a standard moral principle in business, but in politics, it can lead to war.

The conflict calls for a shift into another moral principle, “The Golden Rule”. Israel’s Iron Dome is a promising approach in this direction. If Israel can defend itself against terrorists without killing people in Gaza they own the deepest respect. If Hamas also will start to practice “The Golden Rule” the conflict can eventually fade away.

This is no analysis, but rather a reminder. If we want to abroad the gaps between nations, generations, and different educations we have to move in a democratic direction. Become more equal. Don´t be afraid. And put a little love in our hearts!

Internet is often described as democratic because of its openness and all users’ opportunity to express themselves – even anonymously. But all that is written, filmed and blogged bears clear traces of the author’s background, education, and economic status, so we carry class-status hierarchies onto the internet.

These background factors are not fair. We are born in a world without the possibility to choose circumstances. The democratic society compensates for this unfairness by giving all humans equal democratic rights and we all have to decide if we want to use this equality.

The dream of a more democratic world has got a promising tool, but it is not utilized. Almost all activities are now in the parallel world online. An important exception is political decision-making. The Internet makes it possible to extend the voting right, so it is here that democracy ought to expand. Neither anonymity nor freedom of speech gives us equal democratic value, but digital voting does.

Have you ever seen a child fight? You would like to intervene, but it is not always possible because it is not your problem. But what if you were the police, would you still fail to stop it? Now the child is Syria and the police are the United Nations.

Alarming reports from Human Rights Watch tell about crime being committed. The Syrian regime refuse to facilitate more documentation, just as Gadaffi did in Libya.  It is important for the UN to make clear that all crimes committed in the civil war will be punished.

President Bashar al-Assad is a part of the problem himself. The civilized way to solve a problem is to use the International Criminal Court. Since Syria has many distinct ethnic groups, the only peaceful way to solve the conflict is to help Syria establish democracy.

Lack of democracy is also a problem in the UN. The United Nations Security Council (the power of veto) prevents the UN from gaining the democratic process in Syria. Democracy comes from democracy, as you sow so shall you reap.

The idea of a parliamentary system is that our legislature will make good decisions. To do so the elected officials must cooperate. But often they work against each other instead.

Some people can easily cooperate while others are dominant and just want to win influence. When you vote, you select a politician who thinks like you.

To gain your own influence you tend to choose a candidate who is stubborn and never gives up rather than someone who can cooperate. But a crowd of stubborn people with different opinions can hardly agree on anything. Considered as a group they are the worst possible decision-makers. This group creates the Nash equilibrium in politics.

We could solve the problem by not choosing alpha males or females but instead, appointing representatives who can work together. The problem is that everyone must do it at the same time; otherwise, we will give those who support a dominant candidate very much influence. This is the voters’ dilemma.

Mass murderer Anders Breivik, Oslo, wanted to reach the top of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs. The pyramid shape creates the impression that the top is most worth pursuing because it is hardest to get there. Top step of the pyramid is self-actualization.

Self-actualization is a vague idea that leads people to become self-centered. The idea tells us to aspire to something we already have. Like other mammals, we slowly become self-actualized during pregnancy. You, who can read this, are as actual as one can be. You are alive, that’s all.

The idea of ​​self-actualization is based on confusion between people and ideas. Ideas can be potential or actual. The only thing we can actualize is an idea – by realizing it – but we are no ideas. Ideas can be communicated, but people cannot. We have symbols that represent us – name and PIN – but we are not these symbols. We are living matter, flesh, and blood.

Anders Breivik wanted to become a politician because media elevates our politicians into ideological stars. They let the political leaders personify the ideas, thereby creating a confusion of person and ideas that lead to emotional polarization – love, hate, and populism. Social media increases this tension even more.

Breivik was inspired by the Internet. He wanted to be a modern Templar fighting Islam. On YouTube, he learned to make explosives. The target was the immigrant-friendly Norwegian Labour Party, which he believed had betrayed the country. Anders Breivik killed 93 persons and his name will be spread across the world. But it doesn’t mean he has reached higher self-actualization.

Self-actualization is a dangerous idea, making us focus on agents instead of their actions. Anders Breivik believed that self-actualization was to have his name rewritten a million times. But a terrorist who creates political history at the same moment as he carries out his mass murder has not actualized himself, he has just realized a massacre.

Three hundred years after the scientific revolution we have not yet agreed on standardized definitions and measurements for one of society’s most central concepts: democracy. The word’s original meaning is that society is controlled by the people. Over time the concept of democracy has become more general and imprecise, in the style of the concept of economics.

But in contrast to economic science, democratic research has not developed standardized mathematical concepts and theories. Possibly because of the requirement that science should be kept objective and free of value. The concept of democracy is overloaded and the battle that has occurred has made it difficult to develop a neutral conceptual theory.

The economy has thus come to dominate the social sciences, with quantitative concepts supposed objectivity. Money does not smell, a dollar is a dollar. Every purchase expresses a valuation, but the financial transactions can be handled without concern for the underlying values because mathematics is regarded as objective.

Growth is an economic concept that has acquired great importance. World countries seek steady and sound economic growth. The popular revolutions in the Arab spring seem to have democratic growth as a target, but without a mathematical standard, we cannot estimate the degree of democratic change. As the economic theories and key indicators have been used successfully, we should develop analog concepts for democracy.

The equivalent of money in the democratic system is the votes. A vote is a vote, regardless of what it used to. The starting point of democracy is that all voices – like money – are worth the same. We think that everyone should have the right to buy basically whatever they want. However, there is a struggle about what issues you should have the right to vote on and who should have the right to vote.

The economics are based on the concept of Gross Domestic Product, GDP. Similarly, democratic GDP is calculated by adding the sum of all votes in society at national, regional, and municipal levels – both in the general elections and in parliament, county, and municipal assemblies.

General elections are not held every year. The calculation must be done over the term of office where all votes count, both from voters and elected representatives. The more people take part in democratic voting and the more questions we decide on together, the higher the country’s democratic GDP.

The sun’s energy affects us. Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt coincides with the growth of a new solar cycle. When solar activity increases people will people become more energetic? Solar Cycle Variations are between 9-12 years long. The number of sunspots was a record low in 2008. Then began our current solar cycle 24, which is expected to reach its peak between 2012-2014.

Russian astronomer A. L. Chizhevsky observed a statistical correlation between political events and solar activity. He found that when a sunspot cycle is on the rise people also tend to be more active.

When solar activity increases people seem to be more susceptible to influence, leading to increased political activity of good and evil. Solar cycle 20, for example, reached its peak between 1967-1969, while the Prague Spring and the May 1968 protest in Paris. On the other hand, the Vietnam War escalated and Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in the same period.

Internet and social media mean that the conditions for democratic movements today are better than ever, but there is a risk that improved communication is used to spread fear and propaganda. The effect of solar cycle 24 is still uncertain. How it unfolds probably depends on which kind of message will have the greatest media attention. Let the friendly sunshine in.

Photo: Courtesy NASA / JPL-Caltech